Information Systems Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words - 6

Information Systems - Essay Example System Interface is a candidate for extreme programming while databases and database integration is a candidate for agile modeling and agile data methodologies. Using extreme programming in the case of developing an application that will allow patients to easily enter electronic data for safe uploading is convenient and relevant. Given that the practice serves a wide variety of clientele with different needs and capabilities to operate the devices they use to enter data, continuous and rapid releases experimented on users will allow refinement of the product to the desired levels of functionality and usability. Varied groups of users have varying levels of needs in terms of a user-friendly interface (either computer or mobile). Coupled with disabilities such as vision and level of comprehension, a fit-all product developed using traditional SDLC cannot be usable. The continuous integration and test-driven model acquired by combining extreme programming and agile methodologies would e nsure that the final product is both usable but and friendly. Agile data is applied on the data aspects of the application. Since the functional requirements of the system require the entering and uploading of patient information in a secure manner, agile data techniques are applied on the data aspects of the software system. Agile database development processes and integration include database refactoring, DB regression testing, agile data modeling and continuous database integration (Scott W. Ambler).

Poverty in Canada Essay Example for Free

Poverty in Canada Essay Poverty in Canada has been a long debate on the political and social fronts of the community. According to 2005 reports, an estimated over ten percent of the Canada population are living in poverty. Of much concern is the ever increasing rate of homelessness experienced in the nation over the past two decades (Lee, 2000). However, numerous reports have indicated that the measure of poverty in Canada is negated by the government’s failure to have a definite method of measuring poverty levels. True to the letter, Canadians are current faced with the debate on whether absolute or relative measure of poverty is the best in determining poverty levels in the nation. Nevertheless, numerous measures have been put in place to promote poverty reduction strategies in many provinces of Canada. In addition, non-governmental organizations are increasingly engaging in community based poverty reduction projects. This paper is written as a discussion on poverty in Canada. The author will in particular look at the statistics of poverty in the nation, how poverty is measured in Canada, and the current poverty reduction measures being implemented. Poverty in Canada Poverty in Canada has been an historical issue for many centuries. According to available statistical information, poverty in the nation remains a swing between economic growth and recession as well as numerous evolving initiatives by the government to assist low income members of the community (Raphael, 2002). This information still indicates the emergence of organized assistance to the poor in the twentieth century. True to available literature, most of the poor assistance programs are generally funded by the church. This is evident from the catholic encyclopedia, which funds approximated over eighty seven hospitals in the Canadian nation catering for the poor members of the community (Surhone, 2009). On the other hand, the government has been on the forefront in addressing poverty issues among its citizens. Such can be historically evident from the establishment of the Canada’s welfare state after the great depression as was initiated by Bennett and Mackenzie King. Nevertheless, the problem of poverty in Canada is still a major threat to the sustainable social and economic development of the Canadians. From a 2003 statistical reports, an estimated poverty rate of over 10% has been reported (Raphael, 2002). This percentage has been confirmed by the central intelligence agency as an official value although the absolute rate is undoubtedly expected to be higher. However, the Canadian federal government seems not to agree with this value and have published a current poverty rate to have gone down for the past sixty years to a value less than five percent (Raphael, 2002). This value was determined on the basis of the basic needs poverty measure and deviates very much from what is perceived to be real. Many organizations top on the list being the Fraser institute have not appreciated this value and depict the Canadian federal government as extremely exaggerative. The above contradiction between the government and these conservative organizations has been compounded by the fact that the Canadian federal government has failed to endorse any metric measure of poverty including but not limited to the low income cut off. Altogether, the Canadian federal government seems to have realized the impact of poverty to the society and have employed several measures to reduce it. This is evidenced by the continued decline of poverty in the recent time 1996 when recession which was marked with low income rates. For instance, statistics shows that the less fortunate people such as the physically disabled, mentally ill, and single parent mothers are experiencing higher income rates. Students and recent immigrants have at least higher or average low income rate hence they can afford the basic needs. Measures of poverty in Canada The establishment of an official poverty measuring system in America has been marked with many controversies top on the list being the fact that politicians have failed to agree on a precise definition of poverty (Groot-Maggett, 2002). The have therefore ignored the interest of statistics Canada of defining poverty by it unable and unworthy to determine what is necessary to be a basic necessity. The government and some research institutes use different methods to estimate the extent of poverty of poverty in Canada. However, a debate has emerged on the supremacy of absolute and relative methods of measuring the depth of poverty. The author of this paper discuses both the absolute and the relative measures of poverty. One of the absolute measures of poverty is the basic needs poverty measure. According to libertarian Fraser institute’s economist Chris sarlo, the basic needs poverty measure was conceived to be a poverty threshold (Groot-Maggett, 2002). According to this basic needs approach of poverty, basic needs are those things which are required by people for their physical goods over a long time depending on the current living standards of that particular society. This measure was designed based on different information obtained fro various sources which include but not limited to statistics Canada. An extensive assessment of how much a person can spend in the house was established to give this measure the originality and substance it deserves. This was accomplished by examining the cost of various things which where perceived to meet the above definition of basic need. This included food, clothing, shelter, personal care, transport and communication for different types of societies. Based on the above research and by putting inconsideration the family size, the number of families which had insufficient income to cater for those necessities were determined. Earlier on, the amount of income required to cater for the basic necessities was determined on the basis of gross income which was inclusive of old age pensions and employment insurances. Currently however, the net income has been used the financial ability of a family to sustain its basic requirements (Lee, 2000). A worthy noting point is that this net income is based on reports which can be marked with error such as unreported and underground means of earning income. Based on the basic needs poverty measure, have gone down with an appreciatable rate to a value less than 5% which is estimated to represent less than 2million Canadians. Another absolute measure of poverty is termed the market basket measure. This was designed and established in 2003 by the Canadian government through its department of human resources and skills development (Raphael, 2002). The market basket measure of poverty accommodated a wider range of basic needs than the basic need measure. For instance, it put in consideration the community size and location for at least 48 communities in Canadians and then estimated the sufficient amount of income required to meet those needs. This measure is still understudy and is expected to cover more than 400 communities. The main notable relative property measures is the income distribution measure commonly known as income inequality metrics, gives information regarding the variation of income in a given community. Its effectiveness is evidenced by the fact that when a given group of people increases their income rate then there is a high probability of those earning less to feel an increase in their income. Another often quoted as a relative measure of poverty is the low income cut off which has received many critics from the statistics Canada and they have disregarded it as not a measure of poverty by saying that it does not give reliable and accurate fingers. The low income cut off measure was based on the gross income but the statistics Canada have given reports of both the gross and the net income (Marseken, Timpledon, Surhone, 2009). This measure was designed to give the lowest mark which when exceeded; a family will have to spend much to cater for basic needs such as food shelter and clothing. Recent results based on this measure showed that approximate of 9. 4% lives below the low the current threshold of 63% of the total family income. Poverty reduction measures Like any other country in the world which is conscious of the well being of its people, the Canadian government through the provinces has employed several measures to eliminate poverty and a gain to reduce its impact to the people. Top on the list of these important measures is reduction of tax burdens. This is evidenced by the progressive income tax system in Canada which has resulted to a difference of about 5% between the gross and net low income cut off (Pohl, 2002). Government social programs cannot go unmentioned here because of their importance and effectiveness in succumbing poverty. The Canadian government has come up with a broad range of social programs aimed at helping the law income people. These programs include but not limited to old age security and employment insurance which have seen through the reduction of chances of falling to poverty of people who were rendered unemployed. In addition to this, government funds have been channeled to subsidizing education and public health with an aim of improving the living standards of people with low income (Raphael, 2002). Another government measure which cannot escape this discussion is the introduction of the minimum wage laws. The constitution of Canada includes the minimum wage laws, which even though they vary for different provinces, they have confirmed there effectiveness in standardizing wages by making sure that people with law income are not exploited (Raphael, 2002). The minimum set minimum wage is $8. 00 per hour although it can go a bit down for unskilled workers. Conclusion In conclusion therefore, poverty is not well defined in Canada because of the failure of politicians to agree on the necessities which should be basic. However, the above discussion shows that a considerable number of people in Canada are poor and lacks the basic needs a defined by the basic needs measure of poverty. In addition to this, the government’s effort to eliminate poverty as well as reducing its impacts cannot fail to be appreciated. This is it has invested sufficiently in social programs and in the enforcement of the minimum law wages which have seen through the reduction of poverty and its effect to the people. It also safeguard the less fortunate people and ensured that the poor people are not exploited or robed there right of living a good life. References Groot-Maggetti, G. (2002). A measure if Poverty in Canada. A Guide to the Debate about Poverty. Retrieved August 1, 2010, from http://action. web. ca/home/cpj/attach/A_measure_of_poverty. pdf Lee, K. (2000). Urban Poverty in Canada: Statistical Profile. Retrieved August 2, 2010, from http://www.ccsd. ca/pubs/2000/up/ Marseken, S. , Timpledon, M. , Surhone, L. (2009). Poverty in Canada: Poverty, Minimum Wage, Measuring Poverty, Income Taxes in Canada, Economic History of Canada, Great Depression in Canada, Basic Needs, Economic Inequality. Toronto: Betascript Publishers. Pohl, R. (2002). Poverty in Canada. Retrieved August 1, 2010, from http://www. streetlevelconsulting. ca/homepage/homelessness2InCanada_Part2. htm Raphael, D. (2002). Poverty, Income Inequality, and Health in Canada. Retrieved August 2, 2010, from http://www. povertyandhumanrights. org/docs/incomeHealth. pdf

Queen Victorias Effect on Britain

Queen Victorias Effect on Britain Did Queen Victoria leave her subjects in a better condition in 1901 than when she found them in 1837? The Victorian era was principally a time of change, of transience: the translocation of a people, challenged morally, socially and in their religious beliefs, as never before. Standing majestically above all this was the image of stability which Queen Victoria symbolised. The shift from the rural life of the eighteenth century and the Romantic Movement in the Arts which accompanied it was displaced and the population in the industrial towns and cities swelled to the point of overflowing, producing slums and sweatshops rather than the wealth and security that had been sought, with ‘the Age of the Novel’ involved with social issues as well as establishing a new literary genre. In 1837, when Victoria came to the throne, these changes had already begun and by the time her reign ended, in 1901, more was ahead particularly if one considers the ‘long nineteenth century’ which encompasses the pre-war years up to 1914. How far her people were in a ‘better condi tion’ by the end of Victoria’s reign will be the subject of this essay, looking at the idea via the different media of change evidenced in religion, literature, politics and related social issues as well as the Imperialism which the establishment of the British monarch as the first Empress of India established. In many ways, it is true to say that Victoria presided over a Renaissance which had not been seen since her antecedent, Elizabeth, had been on the throne. The coincidence that a female monarch should have been in place at both times of regeneration does not, however, imply a connective: conditions were very different during Elizabeth’s reign, particularly in the area of social mobility and religious imperatives. The Victorian era saw the greatest challenges to both of these that had ever been seen. The movement of the peasantry to the towns saw an enormous shift in both the physical location of the population and its imperatives. Much was lost, in terms of tradition and permanence when the move to the cities occurred because most of those who did relocate in the hope of increasing their meagre incomes had never been farther than the next village before they moved and this had been the case for generations. Indeed, as early as the mid-nineteenth century novelists were using the idea of the rural idyll to exemplify an ideal existence now lost[1]. This is evident in novels such as George Eliot’s Adam Bede (1859) which was set some fifty years before it was written: As he reached the foot of the slope, an elderly horseman, with his portmanteau strapped behind him, stopped his horse when Adam had passed him, and turned round to have another long look at the stalwart workman in paper cap, leather breeches, and dark-blue worsted stockings.[2] The mounted, unidentified and detached observer (a connective with the contemporary reader) takes a ‘long look at the ‘stalwart workman’ in an elegiac emblem of the author’s intent within the novel to show a time now lost and the changes that were about to take place. Adam as a type of workman has been displaced and is no longer to be found and which represents a longing for a return to old times and old days associated with the countryside which can be traced to the present day and certainly becomes a primary informative, present in works such as Flora Thompson’s enduringly popular Larkrise to Candleford (1945) and further evidenced even in the work of such ‘scientific’ novelists as H.G. Wells in his novel, The History of Mr Polly, and the character of Leonard Bast as well as the evocative, mystical rural setting in E.M. Forster’s Howard’s End, both written in 1910. The novel also introduces the character of a female preacher, a ‘Dissenter’, in other words a Methodist, and by combining the two, Eliot shows that despite the loss of the life portrayed in her novel, there were positive challenges which changes such as the growing desire for the emancipation of women, at the forefront of which was J.S. Mill[3], and the need to find new ways of expressing religious sensibility. The ultimate challenge to religion, of course, was presented by the theories of evolution which were being formulated in the 1860s. Although Charles Darwin is credited with having discovered this, the work of such as Herbert Spencer, who actually coined the term ‘survival of the fittest’ in his Principles of Biology (1864) which Darwin incorporated into a later edition of his own work, were also significant. Within his seminal The Origin of Species, first published in 1859, Darwin introduced to the wider public the then profoundly disturbing notion that man was not created entire and complete as the Bible relates but evolved and thus dispossessed an entire generation who had previously felt secure in the knowledge of God as their Creator (though Darwin uses this term himself many times within the work and does not deny the idea of a Creator directly[4]). It is a mistake, however, to assume that Darwin’s ideas had much immediate effect on the population at large. R ather, its immediate aftermath may be discerned in the literature of the time, George Eliot, a close friend of Spencer, amongst these. Moreover, his published theories were simply an affirmation for many of a growing generic scepticism, such as Thomas Hardy shows: On the last day of the year [1901] he makes the following reflection: ‘After reading various philosophic systems, and being struck with their contradictions and futilities, I have come to this: Let every man make a philosophy for himself out of his own experience. He will not be able to escape using terms and phraseology from earlier philosophers, but let him avoid adopting their theories if he values his own mental life. Let him remember the fate of Coleridge, and save years of labour by working out his own views as given him by his surroundings.’[5] However, just as the move from the towns to the cities subsequently produced a sense of loss, the disconnection with the certainty of divine creation also saw the longing for a mystical element to life once ‘the divine’ had, in a sense, been removed from it: seeking ‘an oasis of mystery in the dreary desert of knowledge’[6]. The disconnection resulted in the burgeoning of interest in Spiritualism which was witnessed at the end of the century, with personages as eminent and respected as Rudyard Kipling not only interested and involved with this but also writing about it in stories such as the mysterious ‘They’[7] and imagination came to be seen as connected to the divine and dislocated by Darwin’s discoveries, Forster wrote in 1910: ‘They collect facts and facts and empires of facts. But which of them will re-kindle the light within?’[8] However, the connection of facts with the denial of imagination had been discussed much earlier by the man who is above anyone the voice of the nineteenth century, Charles Dickens. In his novel of 1854, Hard Times, he demonstrates the denial of the importance of ‘fancy’ in Utilitarian educational methods and the pre-eminence of ‘facts’[9]. This he extends to the teaching methods used to train the teachers themselves: He and some one hundred and forty other schoolmasters had been lately turned at the same time, in the same factory, on the same principles, like so many pianoforte legs. He had been put through an immense variety of paces, and had answered volumes of head-breaking questions. [†¦] He had worked his stony way into Her Majestys most Honourable Privy Councils Schedule B, and had taken the bloom off the higher branches of mathematics and physical science, French, German, Latin and Greek. [†¦] Ah, rather overdone, MChoakumchild. If he had only learnt a little less, how infinitely better he might have taught much more![10] Dickens the radical is less appreciated now than in his own time, as in subsequent centuries he has come to be seen simply as a master-story teller, which of course he was. However, this is to deny the way that Dickens, as evidenced in this satirical swipe at the Utilitarian movement, used his immense popularity in the cause of social reform. Indeed, in the early years of Victoria’s reign, he published his second and third novels, Oliver Twist (1837-9) and Nicholas Nickleby (1838-9). The first of these was concerned with the effects of the infamous ‘Poor Law’ and the 1834 amendment. It was widely believed that the abuse of this injured rather than helped the poor and Dickens’ novel was intended to bring that to the notice of those who had the power to do something about it, as well as reaching the newly literate lower echelons and letting them know they had someone who would speak for them, that their story, as Dickens remarked in his Preface to the 1867 ed ition, from thieves to prostitutes, was a ‘TRUTH’ that ‘needed to be told’[11]. As his friend and first biographer remarked: His qualities could be appreciated as well as felt in an almost equal degree by all classes of his various readers.[12] Thus, as the novelist is known to have said, by making people care about one child, he might make them care about the many and this emanated from his own sufferings as a child alone in London when his father was imprisoned for debt in the infamous Marshalsea (which was to provide the setting for his later novel, Little Dorrit, 1857, though the six hundred year old prison closed in 1842) whence he was accompanied by his wife and younger children[13]. Dickens never spoke of the experience, save through his fiction, nor did he ever forget it. In Nicholas Nickleby and the creation of Dotheboys Hall, Dickens continued to exercise his creative power to bring to the attention of his readers the appalling social evil of the Yorkshire schools, whose abuses he remembered hearing of as a child and then investigated (whilst wearing a disguise) as part of his research for the novel. As the author said in his fragment of autobiography, ‘we should be devilish careful what we do to children’[14]. Dickens had a long memory and an acute social awareness and both are evident in Nickleby, as is the sheer exhilaration and appetite for life which had proved so popular in his first novel Pickwick Papers (1836-7). Moreover, Dickens was a successful reformer, commenting in his preface to the 1848 edition: This story was begun, within a few months after the publication of the completed Pickwick Papers. There were, then, a good many cheap Yorkshire schools in existence. There are very few now.[15] The fact is stated simply but the achievement was immense. The obverse of these schools, of course, was seen in Arnold’s pioneering work in reforming the public schools, as evidenced in Thomas Hughes’, Tom Brown’s Schooldays (1857). The issue of social and educational reform was one with which many novelists were concerned at this time, engaging with both the needs and desires of the weakest in society. Engels had identified this as ‘the social war, the war of each against all’[16] and he applied this as a generic to the multiplicity of industrial towns and cities: What is true of London, is true of Manchester, Birmingham, Leeds, is true of all great towns. Everywhere barbarous indifference, hard egotism on one hand, and nameless misery on the other, everywhere social warfare, every mans house in a state of siege, everywhere reciprocal plundering under the protection of the law, and all so shameless, so openly avowed that one shrinks before the consequences of our social state as they manifest themselves here undisguised, and can only wonder that the whole crazy fabric still hangs together.[17] Engels’ work was published between September 1844 and March 1845 and had an immediate effect on not just those who were, if one may term it so, ‘declared radicals’, like himself, but also those like the deeply ‘respectable’ and widely respected writer Elizabeth Gaskell, whose first novel, Mary Barton, written in 1848, partly to assuage the pain of losing her child, deals largely with the poverty experienced by the poor in Manchester. Gaskell, encouraged by both her husband, the Ereverend William Gaskell, and Dickens, researched the conditions of the city in which she and William were then living. What she found horrified her and the reality of expression present within the novel can be seen in her powerful descriptions of the slum dwellings she had seen: Our friends were not dainty, but even they picked their way, till they got to some steps leading down to a small area, where a person standing would have his head about one foot below the level of the street, and might at the same time, without the least motion of his body, touch the window of the cellar and the damp muddy wall right opposite. You went down one step even from the foul area into the cellar in which a family of human beings lived. It was very dark inside. The window-panes many of them were broken and stuffed with rags, which was reason enough for the dusky light that pervaded the place even at mid-day. After the account I have given of the state of the street, no one can be surprised that on going into the cellar inhabited by Davenport, the smell was so foetid as almost to knock the two men down.[18] The importance of setting such descriptions in the context of fiction might be thought possibly to lessen its reality in the eyes of contemporary readers but nothing could be farther from the truth, as though few would be drawn to the admirable tracts of Engels, many were attracted to the vivid stories of such as Dickens and Gaskell. Indeed, Gaskell was careful always to ensure that her work did not offend those in power to the extent that she will qualify a passage on the uncaring attitude of the rich as perceived by the poor by adding placatory comments such as: I know that this is not really the case; and I know what is the truth in such matters: but what I wish to impress is what the workman feels and thinks.[19] The implied separation in comprehension may appear patronising by today’s standards but it must be remembered that Gaskell was truly attempting to do as she proclaimed, ‘impress’ the thoughts and feelings of ‘the workman’ on those in power in the hope it would aid reform. If she had been too directly challenging, they would simply not have read her works which would have defeated the object. Gaskell faced similar opposition in her second novel, Ruth, published in 1853, when she addressed the topic of an unmarried mother sympathetically, much too sympathetically for the liking of many, who felt she was undermining the perceived moral and religious mores of the time. The novel was thought to be based upon the true story of a girl called Pasley: In 1850 she took up the cause of a girl called Pasley whom she had come across in the New Bayley prison. In a long letter to Dickens, at that time involved in his emigration project for fallen women, she gives details of the case. Pasleys career exemplifies the dangers facing even a girl of respectable parentage who was neglected. The daughter of an Irish clergyman who had died when she was two, she had been neglected by an indifferent mother, and then placed in an orphanage, before becoming a dressmakers apprentice. Following a series of misfortunes for which she had not herself been responsible she had been seduced by her own doctor. The consequence had been first the Penitentiary and then a career of petty crime; finally, by an appalling stroke of coincidence, the poor girl had been confronted when in prison by her very seducer, now acting as prison surgeon.[20] Certainly, there are many similarities between the case of Pasley and that of Ruth and Gaskell’s clear intent is to show how difficult was the plight of girls in Ruth’s and Pasley’s situation. Gaskell successfully persuaded Dickens to intervene for Pasley and she emigrated but clearly the case was not forgotten by her as emblematic of the vulnerability of young girls in nineteenth century society. Indeed, she had already addressed the idea that prostitution was the usual fate of such girls in Mary Barton and the ‘petty crime’ to which she refers might certainly be euphemistically describing prostitution. Attitudes towards prostitution were far from sympathetic and much of the reforming work done at the time concerned not only changing conditions for prostitutes but also in improving the notorious double-standard which operated towards it, both then and now. The Contagious Diseases Acts of 1864, 1866, and 1869 to some extent reflect this. The Act was established to protect soldiers but had the coincidental effect of advancing the cause of women’s liberation: [†¦] legislation intended to protect members of the British armed forces from sexually transmitted diseases ended up galvanizing a major Victorian feminist movement in which working- and middle-class women worked together for a common cause.[21] Thus, it can be seen that Gaskell’s pre-emptive strike truly reflected the feelings of many that Victorian laws operated for the protection of men rather than women and that even though there were exceptions, such as Mill and Dickens, the latter of whom set up Urania Cottage as a refuge for ‘fallen women’, the vast majority of the population preferred simply to ignore the suffering and anguish of girls on the streets. Somewhat ironically, compassion towards prostitutes was stirred by the infamous ‘Whitechapel Murders’ of 1888-91, perpetrated by the still unidentified ‘Jack the Ripper’. Even for the so called ‘respectable’ working classes, indeed, in general conditions were appallingly bad, especially in the factories and sweatshops[22] which abounded both in London and elsewhere in the country: ‘The nineteenth century saw the Englishman turn town dweller and by 1900 three-quarters of the nation lived in towns’[23]. Bearing this in mind, it seems inevitable that conditions in these towns would be at best difficult and at worst unbearable (the infamous employment of children as, for example, chimney-sweeps, being evident in the work of such as the reformer Charles Kingsley who wrote The Water Babies in 1863 to expose this abuse). Thus, approaching the end of Victoria’s reign, the population was generally in a state of crisis. However, there was a discernable exception to this, in part, in the beginning of what we would now take to be an upwardly mobile meritocracy. Consisting largely of those persons concerned with ‘white-collar work’, the clerk for example, this section of society knew a growth and freedom such as never before. Possibly the best example of this is to be found in George and Weedon Grossmith’s The Diary of a Nobody, first published in Punch as a series of articles during 1888-9, in the form of a diary of the fictional Mr. Pooter. The highly amusing work is also an invaluable record of a new type of man emerging in Victorian society: My clear wife Carrie and I have just been a week in our new house, â€Å"The Laurels,† Brickfield Terrace, Holloway—a nice six-roomed residence, not counting basement, with a front breakfast-parlour. We have a little front garden; and there is a flight of ten steps up to the front door, which, by-the-by, we keep locked with the chain up. Cummings, Gowing, and our other intimate friends always come to the little side entrance, which saves the servant the trouble of going up to the front door, thereby taking her from her work. We have a nice little back garden which runs down to the railway. We were rather afraid of the noise of the trains at first, but the landlord said we should not notice them after a bit, and took  £2 off the rent. He was certainly right; and beyond the cracking of the garden wall at the bottom, we have suffered no inconvenience.[24] The Pooters encapsulate the image of a new class, living in their own home, employing a servant, having a garden and yet still retaining their parsimonious connective with their humbler origins; in many ways, the Pooters are the future. In conclusion, it may be remarked that the Victorian era saw the greatest period of change that had ever been seen. Industrial development saw riches and poverty in unequal measure; improvements were made in nursing and social concerns but the population mostly remained in poverty and both ill-nourished and inadequately cared for in terms of health; the trains united the country but the rural population was fragmented and the urban largely in dire circumstances; schooling was expanded and literacy improved but the standard of education was at best questionable; the Empire flourished but its members across the seas were mostly downtrodden, subjugated and rebellious: in short, to quote Dickens’ famous opening to A Tale of Two Cities (1859), ‘it was the best of times and the worst of times’. It is extremely difficult to assess, in the final analysis, whether the end of Victoria’s reign saw her people in a better or worse condition than when her reign began but certainly, the single most important development seen was the opportunity for change. In this sense if no other, the population was better off at the end of the long nineteenth century than at the beginning of it. However, the war that was about to devastate Europe brought apocalyptic changes which could never have been envisaged and certainly Tennyson’s famous reference in ‘The Charge of the Light Brigade’ (1854) to the fact that ‘Some one had blunderd’ would take on a profoundly disturbing resonance from which the world over which Victoria presided would never recover. Truly, 1914 brought more than just the end of an era it brought the end of Victorian mores and the expectations of the population would alter radically, with revolution, such as occurred in Russia in 1917, a perpetual possibility, especially with the growth of the unions and the Socialist Party, which wiped out the Liberals. Victoria’s reign was not just one age but many and as such, like most eras, was both good and bad. Bibliography Ackroyd, Peter. Dickens. London: Guild Publishing, 1990. Beer, Gillian. Darwin’s Plots. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000. Davis, Philip. The Victorians. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002. Cobbet, William. Rural Rides. New York: Cosimo Classics, 2004. Darwin, Charles. The Origin of Species. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996. Dickens, C. Oliver Twist. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999 Dickens, Charles. Hard Times. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989. Eliot, George. Adam Bede. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998. Eliot, George. The Lifted Veil. London: Virago Press, 1985, Englels, F. The Condition of the Working class in England (1844) http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1845/condition-working-class/index.htm> Forster, E.M. Howards End. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1987. Forster, J. The Life of Charles Dickens in Two Volumes. London: J.M. Dent, 1980. Hardy, F.E. The Life of Thomas Hardy. London: Macmillan, 1962. Hughes, Thomas. Tom Browns School Days. New York: Harper Brothers,1911. Gaskell, Elizabeth. Mary Barton. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1993. Gaskell, Elizabeth. Ruth. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998. Grossmith, G M. The Diary of a Nobody. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998. Kipling, Rudyard. Kim. Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1918. Kipling, Rudyard. Traffics and Dicoveries. New York: Charles Scribner Sons. Langland, Elizabeth. Nobodys Angels: Middle-Class Women and Domestic Ideology in Victorian Culture. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1995. Lawrence, D.H. The Rainbow. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997. Lightman, Bernard, ed. Victorian Science in context. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1997. Maltus, Thomas. Essay on the Principle of Population (1798), 29.11.08. http://www.marxists.org/reference/subject/economics/malthus/index.htm> Mathias, P. The first Industrial Nation. London: Routledge, 2001. Mayhew, Henry. The Unknown Mayhew. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1971. Mill, J.S. The Subjection of Women. New York: Prometheus, 1986. Roberts, F. David. The Social Conscience of the Early Victorians. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2002. Smiles, Samuel, Self Help. 29.11.08 http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext97/selfh10h.htm> Smiles, Samuel. Industrial Biography: Iron-Workers and Tool-Makers. Boston: Ticknor and Fields,1864. Sturt, George. Change in the Village. London: Caliban Books, 1984. Thompson, Flora. Lark Rise to Candleford. London: Penguin, 2008. The Victorian Web. accessed 30.11.08. http://www.victorianweb.org/gender/contagious.html> Worthen, John. D H Lawrence. The Early Years 1885-1912. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991. 1 Footnotes [1] For more on the idea of changes and loss of traditions see: Sturt, George. Change in the Village. London: Caliban Books, 1984. (First published in 1912.) [2] Eliot, George. Adam Bede. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998, p. 12. [3] See: Mill, J.S. The Subjection of Women. New York: Prometheus, 1986. [4] Darwin, Charles. The Origin of Species. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996. [5] Hardy, F.E. The Life of Thomas Hardy. London: Macmillan, 1962, p. 310. [6] Eliot, George. The Lifted Veil. 1878. London: Virago Press, 1985, p. 26. [7] Kipling, Rudyard. Traffics and Dicoveries. New York: Charles Scribners Sons, 1904, p. 337. [8] Forster, E.M. Howards End. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1987, p. 43. [9] Dickens, C. Hard Times. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989, pp. 8-9. [10] Dickens, C. Hard Times. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989, p. 10. [11] Dickens, C. Oliver Twist. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999, Preface, p. xx. [12] Forster, J. The Life of Charles Dickens in Two Volumes. London: J.M. Dent, 1980, vol. I, p. 83. [13] Forster, J. The Life of Charles Dickens in Two Volumes. London: J.M. Dent, 1980. [14] Forster, J. The Life of Charles Dickens in Two Volumes. London: J.M. Dent, 1980. [15] Dickens, C. Nicholas Nickleby. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1990, Preface to the 1848 Edition, Lii. [16] Englels, F. The Condition of the Working class in England (1844): 29.11.08. http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1845/condition-working-class/index.htm> [17] Englels, F. The Condition of the Working class in England (1844): 29.11.08. http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1845/condition-working-class/index.htm> [18] Gaskell, Elizabeth. Mary Barton. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1993, pp. 79-80. [19] Gaskell, Elizabeth. Mary Barton. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1993, p. 49. [20] See Alan Shelston’s introduction to: Gaskell, Elizabeth. Ruth. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998, pp. vii-viii. [21] See: ‘The Contagious Diseases Act’, accessed 30.11.08. http://www.victorianweb.org/gender/contagious.html> [22] See: Mayhew, Henry. The Unknown Mayhew. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1971. [23] Mathias, P. The First Industrial Nation. London: Routledge, 2001, p. 226. [24] Grossmith, G M. The Diary of a Nobody. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998, p. 3.

Forbidden Desire in Shakespeares A Midsummer Nights Dream Essay

Forbidden Desire in Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream In his play A Midsummer Night's Dream, William Shakespeare explores the conflict of forbidden desire, as revealed through the experience of four young lovers dwelling in ancient Greece. Hermia and Lysander are two of these lovers, and their desire to marry one another is prohibited by Hermia's father Egeus, and enforced by the governor of Athenian law-King Theseus. Hermia is informed that she may only agree to one of three undesirable choices: marry Demetrius unwillingly, submit to an austere, celibate life as a nun, or face certain execution. Confronted with these dreadful options, Hermia agrees to flee from Athens towards the remote house of Lysanders' widowed aunt, in the wood of Greece. While wandering in this nearby wood, Hermia and Lysander lose their way in the silent, moonlit night, and drift into sleep. Here-away from the prohibitions of rational Greek civilization-Shakespeare plunges his audience into the psychological realm of his characters, by developing the dream-filled , darkened wilderness of Greece as a medium offering access to the unconscious realm of his characters. In the ensuing forest scenes, Shakespeare blends fiction with fantasy, and ultimately allows his characters to confront the boundaries of consciousness and unconsciousness, thus resolving the conflict of socially repressed desire. The departure of Hermia and Lysander from the city of Athens to the wood intentionally coincides with the first appearance of fantasy in the play. In Act 2, Scene 1, Robin Goodfellow (also known as Puck the mischievous spirit), and a fairy, enter into the plot outside the perimeter of Athens; with the entrance of these otherworldly figures, Shakespeare is ... ...er Night's Dream is comedic in nature, it provides serious insight into the importance of fantasy and desire to humanity-especially amidst certain intellectual thought in advancing civilization. A Midsummer Night's Dream demonstrates that fantasy is inseparably interconnected with desire, existent both within the imagination, and within the unconscious. Works Cited Shakespeare, William. "A Midsummer Night's Dream." The Norton Shakespeare.Ed. Stephen Greenblatt. W.W. Norton and Co: New York, 1997. 1.1, 65-67. 2.2, 155. 4.1, 167. 5.1, 1-8. Freud, Sigmund. "The Interpretation of Dreams." Literary Theory: An Anthology. Julie Rivkin, and Michael Ryan, eds. Blackwell: Malden, Massachussets. 2000. 148 Freud, Sigmund. "The Uncanny." Literary Theory: An Anthology. Julie Rivkin, and Michael Ryan, eds. Blackwell: Malden, Massachussets. 2000. 166.

Use of Chemical Weapons and its Effects on the Neighboring Countries

Globalization can be defined as the process of integrating the social, economic, political, and cultural of different countries globally. Globalization stems back all the way to the second half of the 20th century. Globalization has plenty of accolades, but it also has major negative consequences. Scientific developments hastened with globalization and tools of mass destruction like chemical weapons started being produced on large scale and demand. This paper focuses on how the use of chemical weapons in Syria has affected the Syrian environment and its relations with its neighboring countries. Background Chemical weapons are some of the most dangerous tools to be used in war. Chemical weapons have been used for centuries in fight, but it was not until the First World War that they were used in large scale. According to Ahmet ÃÅ"zà ¼mcà ¼ says that this was all made possible by the rapid advances in science technology that enabled the mass production of these lethal weapons. Despite the early efforts to control the use of these weapons by signing the Geneva protocol in 1925, it did not require that one could not stock chemical agent; therefore, they continued to be used in warfare during the cold war and even the Iran-Iraq war. In 1993, the world community signed the chemical weapon convention, which was enforced in 1997 (1). This was a much comprehensive ban on chemical weapons. Destruction of these weapons is projected to conclude in the next few years. Recent events in Syria have reminded the world of the horrific impact of chemical weapons. According to Pita Renà © and Juan Domingo, the Syrian government accused a terrorist group of firing a chemical rocket at the southeast of the city of Aleppo, Khan Al Asal that took the lives of 25 innocent people and injured more than 110 people (2). Jefferson quoted the US secretary of state on the event as â€Å"moral obscenity†. The Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) could not investigate the disaster since at the time Syria was not a member of the Chemical World Convention. However, after the Syrian Government asked the United Nations to investigate whether the use of chemical weapons caused the attack, it started the UN Secretary-General Mechanism (SGM). The UN Secretary-General assembled a mission that consisted of OCPW personnel and medical staff from the world health organization (4). The investigation did confirm that the attack was chemical based, and also set the base for the investigation of other alleged chemical weapon attacks with France and the United Kingdom accusing Syria of another chemical related attack. These were followed by other allegations by Qatar and the USA. They were all alleging that through their investigations they had found the 12 different attacks to have been caused by chemical weapons which were in possession of the Syrian government. The investigations were conducted through the means of individualized governments, which meant that the UN could not use the findings. The United Nations could not use these findings because they did not have the proper chain of protection, as the United Nations required the investigation to be done by its personnel. However, after all the turn of events, the Syrian government decided to join the CWC led to the commencement of international efforts to completely Syria of these dangerous chemical weapons (5). Problems The use of Chemical weapons in Syria attracted a lot of attention from big world powers. Greg says that the USA and the UK became the most spoken in the fight against removing chemical weapons and a new regime in Syria. After the statement of the US secretary of state John Kerry, the then President of the United States of America Barrack Obama also issued a statement warning Syria that any use of chemical weapons by the country would be crossing a global red line. The British Prime minister David Cameron despite conceding the parliamentary vote on taking part in military action and gave a striking warning that the use of chemical weapons would quality a strong response from the United Kingdom. According to Christian Henderson, the UK decided that by â€Å"legal basis military action would be humanitarian intervention.† Syria had potentially made unnecessary powerful enemies who could subdue it if it went past diplomacy (3). Syria was not part of the CWC when the first attack took place; this meant that the relevant authority that was assigned with the task of investigating chemical attacks could not get involved. Even though other individualized governments had carried out their investigation due to the lack of chain of custody of the investigations, even the UN could not take any action. This meant the process would drag on for a longer period than it should have and the relationship between the countries involved would continue to strain. In turn, the process of ridding the universe of chemical weapons would suffer setbacks. Pros The attack in Syria brought back the attention of the world to a problem that needed an urgent solution. Syria was still one of the countries that were still not in the CWC, and the attack showed the world that they needed to do everything possible to get the other countries to join CWC. According to Catherine Jefferson, Syria did allow and joined CWC and had since cooperated with the body in the destruction of the chemical weapons stock. For the OPCW to get involved in the first investigation, it required the activation of the SGM, the enactment of this mechanism showed the importance of achieving Universal membership (2). Since Syria became part of the CWC actions have been taken to ensure that Syria destroys the chemical weapons and through this Samiotis and Grekos, shows in 2014 chemical weapons from Syria were destroyed aboard a vessel belonging to the US Maritime Administration by the name MV Cape Ray in the Mediterranean Sea. This was a big milestone in the fight for a world free from chemical weaponry (2). Cons The first agreement against chemical weapons, the Geneva protocol was signed in 1925, but countries were still stockpiling chemical weapons, and it took well over 68 years before the Chemical Weapon Convention was established in 1993. It took another four years for it to be enforced, but the drawback is that there are countries that are not part of the CWC; thus, this does not affect that which puts the convention under threat. This is seen when the attacks in Syria take place by the use of the weapons, and it is even harder to assemble a mission to investigate the attacks due to the lack of custody (Renà © and Domingo 2). The convention has played a big role in destroying chemical weapons, but there is still a long way to go before they accomplish this mission entirely. The use of chemical weapons in Syria has a very negative effect on the natural environment of the countries affected. According to Pita Renà © and Juan Domingo shows, that the samples collected from the scene of the attack had Sarin decomposition and metabolites. The destruction of chemical weapons in the Mediterranean Sea according to has consequences that even from a scientific perspective still do not know the extent to which it may destroy the sea. The chemicals involved in the making of the weapons cause a lot of damage to the environment which if not dealt with my cause a permanent problem. Many of the attacks have happened within Syria, and any signs of way are a threat to political stability and attainment of world peace. The claims that have been made against the Syrian government have not been proven, and thus no one has taken responsibility for the attacks (4). Solutions According to Christopher Jenkins, the CWC is on the right track towards the complete destruction of chemical weapons. The CWC should engage the countries that have not joined them to subscribe to the cause and help the world become chemical weapon free. Most of the countries are storing the weapons because of the uncertainty that they might face a war shortly. If the CWC and other relevant authorities come together, get involved and guarantee these countries that they won't fall into the attack, then it may be possible to get them to join CWC (1). Recommendations The Syrian government has strained relations with other countries due to the recent attacks. It is important for these countries to have a good international relationship for the CWC to be well enforced and reduce any chances of them getting into a war and spark another wave of large-scale production chemical weapons. The Syrian government should also get involved in the process of restoring the country to a more stable state. They should get as much outside help as possible and enhance their international relationships.

Code-Switching and linking the margins

Imagine for a second that all the Anglo-Saxon world’s literary characters were lined up one by one chronologically. We start off with Chaucer’s characters and move our way up to Wilde’s dandies, and then up to Marlow who is framed in the background by a few tribesmen in the Congo, and then suddenly we have Mr. Biswas.For the most part Colonialist literature has contained Caucasian characters as their center with the inclusion of some distant races as support.The subjects of colonialism were barred entry to the privileged world of Colonial literature by their inability to conform to Colonialist’s cultural practices; their expression of culture both in language and custom did not meet with the stringent and racist codes required for literature. V.S. Naipaul, who was originally consigned to the category of â€Å"commonwealth writer,† by the British press, has managed to place the subjects of Anglo-Saxon’s colonialism, into the same canon with th eir oppressors. Marlow, muddling his way up the river, now sits adjacent to Mr. Biswas who curses in his Creole English struggling to pay off debt.Unlike Mr. Biswas, Naipaul’s own writing is often steeped in the vernacular of his Oxford education, but he faithfully records the breaches with colonial grammatical rules through extensive code-switching making low-caste Indian Christian converts into literary forms as accessible as the characters found in other canonical Western literary texts.Naipaul’s use of â€Å"variable orthography to make dialect more accessible,†(Empire 41) in code-switching takes people marginalized by colonialism’s hegemonic processes and renders them in the center as literary subjects. This process frees the voices of Naipaul’s novel which have been silenced by colonial insistence on proper grammar in communication and the reality of their remoteness geographically. For instance, The novel’s protagonist, Mr. Biswas, co mmunicates in an English that often enunciates verbs as the beginnings of sentences such as when he says, â€Å"†Feel how the car sitting nice on the road?Feel it, Anand? Savi?† (Naipaul 278) or â€Å"Is the sort of place you could build up.† (Naipaul 138). Not exactly the language of Shakespeare, but Mr. Biswas is a literary character enfolded in Naipaul’s own inventive and colonialist language. By draping Biswas in grammatically perfect sentences, Naipaul has managed to break class bearers refuting the position of colonialist characters as seconds as they are in Conrad, but still maintaining a narrative voice that bridges the gap between subject and ruler.Mr. Biswas doesn’t speak in the language of fine literature, but his speaking, â€Å"refutes the privileged position of a standard code in the language.†(Empire 40). Biswas is expressing himself in a Creole that prefers the verbal placements of Bengali, he is refusing to adopt the thought processes included in proper English grammar.Naipaul’s use of code-switching allows Mr. Biswas’ expressions to be placed in canonical literature and by extensions it sheds light on cultural otherness, Mr. Biswas does not think in the proper forms of colonial English, he still spews out thoughts like a proper Brahmin only using English as his form.Biswas’ sayings reveal a cultural otherness that English can’t express, thinking in terms of verbs first or his constant negation of articles such as â€Å"a† and â€Å"the,† are all indicators of the culture that lies beneath his speech, but which English cannot bring to light.